A crowded House of Commons gave fascinated attention, last week, to plump, ruddy-cheeked Rt. Hon. Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, shrewdly audacious Chancellor of Great Britain's Exchequer.
Ostensibly his pungent speech of three hours' duration served merely to "open" (present) the Empire Budget for 1928. Actually he was trumpeting abroad a new political program, on the basis of which his party (Conservative) plans to appeal to the electorate in 1929.
So fervent was Mr. Churchill's mood that, when Laborites attempted to heckle him, he fairly roared: "What! you mock us, do you? Then we will advance upon you with invincible power!" Paying but small regard to modesty, Chancellor Churchill added that "possibly" his new budget program is "the most important measure to be introduced in Parliament . . . since the great Reform Bill of 1832."*
Program. As a prelude to his project, Chancellor Churchill drew attention to the undoubted fact that Great Britain's productive industries & farmlands are now crushingly burdened by "the rates," that is by taxes locally imposed. These local burdens upon production, said Mr. Churchill, must hereafter be borne by the country as a whole, and especially by firms engaged in distribution, such as the oil companies.
Thus is envisioned a shifting of the whole burden of British taxation so drastic as to seem epochal. Chancellor Churchill, beaming with confidence, announced that his program has the unanimous support of all members of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin's Cabinet (Conservative). It is scheduled to come into effect as of Oct. i, 1929, with the passage of a series of bills, which the Cabinet expects to carry through Parliament before Christmas, 1928.
The mechanism of the projected tax shift will be for the Treasury to remit three quarters of the "rates" (taxes) now levied locally upon "productive industry employing manual labor." In the case of "actively producing farmlands" the Treasury will remit the whole of the local taxes, "They will be wiped clean off the slate!" exulted Mr. Churchill. Then he stated soberly that the "wiping" would cost the Treasury £29,000,000 per year ($140,940,000).
Fund. Though this huge sum will not have to be budgeted until 1929, a fund from which it may be drawn was proposed, last week, by Chancellor Churchill as a feature of his new Budget. He destined for this fiscal nest egg the budgetary surplus for the year just past, amounting to £4,250,000. Further to swell the fund, Mr. Churchill established last week, to take effect at once, an increased tax of four pence per gallon on automotive gasoline and oils—a tax which he declared will bring in £14,404,000 ($70,000,000) this year "and more later." The immediate result was that last week the price of a gallon of gasoline jumped four pence and a farthing (8^c¢) throughout Great Britain. Motorists cursed. Bus companies warned of increased fares.